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Frequently Asked Questions

General

You cannot delete individual mosaics at this time. You can only make your mosaics private, so that only you are able to see it in your gallery. You must delete your account all together if you want to delete your mosaic. This is because remixed mosaics are dependent on the mosaics they were remixed from. And because of backups we create in real-time that is read-only. We can easily implement a feature where we say that we've deleted your mosaics, but in reality it just hides them in sight. But this is not the way we believe it should we handled. If we're going to let you delete mosaics, we really want to delete it, and not just say that we're going to delete. So far, we have not been able to figure out a good way to achieve this without having you to delete your account all together. We know it's inconvenient, and it's in the back of our minds as to how to make it better, but this is what we're most comfortable doing at this time.

Perfecting Mosaics

We say that you can “add up to 10,000 photos." But you can actually add more. If you do, the issue is that there won't be enough space in your mosaic to put all your small pictures. For example, if your mosaic is 100 tiles wide, and 100 tiles high, that gives you 10,000 spots to place your 10,000 photos. If you upload more than that, some of the pictures that don't match the colors of your big picture well, won't be used.

The eyes can get a bit tricky to render right in a mosaic. It's such an important feature, yet so small, so sometimes it’s hard to get it to look right. You can try couple of things when this happens. You can render your mosaic again and again until you get a version where the eyes look good. Or you can save your mosaic, and then replace the pictures in the eye area yourself manually. You can do this by clicking/tapping and holding down on the small picture you want to replace. Then clicking replace, and then selecting the new picture you want to replace it with.

Skin tone is another common issue that takes a little know how to get it right. There are 3 ways to make it better. First is, add more small pictures where the photo is a close-up face shot with the same skin tone as the big picture. This will allow those photos with the same skin tone to be used around the areas of the face and skin of the big picture. Second is, to use a third-party image editing software to tweak the colors of your big picture. Lastly, you can try to increase the colorization of your mosaic.

Color match is how well the colors of your small pictures match the colors of your big picture. So, for example, if you have a big picture of a person wearing a red shirt on green background, you want to have some small pictures where majority of the colors is red, green, and skin-colored. If you have that, then your color match will be high. However, if your small pictures are mostly blue in overall color, then your color match will be low. You want to get your color match as high as possible. Generally, 50% is good, but higher the better. It's also important to cover the full range of colors found in your big picture. It's possible that you have 50% or higher color match, but you don't have any red photos to match the red shirt. In such cases, adding some red photos will be more helpful than adding green or skin-colored photos to increase the color match even higher.

Optimization is the process of optimizing your mosaic for your intended use. Whether it's bound for digital publication, or for print, there are many to things to consider, and the optimization process helps you to get the best result. For example, it lets you set how big your small pictures are going to be relative to the big picture. This is helpful if you're going to print it to a certain size, but you want to make sure that your small pictures are visible when it is printed. It also lets you crop your big picture to specific print sizes so that the pictures don't get cut off when you print it. It also lets you set how often your pictures can be repeated, which is helpful if you want all the photos you uploaded to be used evenly at the sacrifice of overall mosaic effect. It also lets you easily try your photo mosaic in black and white, and it also lets you set the colorization, from 0% to 66%, so that your mosaic has absolutely no colorization and the mosaic effect is being created completely based on arrangements alone, or you can colorize it to enhance the mosaic effect.

Yes. After saving your mosaic, you can add more photos to it, or remix it. Remixing creates a new version of the mosaic, which lets you compare multiple versions before making your purchase.

After saving your mosaic, on the zoomable mosaic viewer, click on the hold the photo you want to delete. Click on the photo, and then click delete. Then update the mosaic by clicking update.

This is a really tough question that depends on your screen and the colors of your mosaic. All screens render colors slightly differently. And not all colors on screens can be printed in the exact same way on print. This is because screen is back-lit, while prints are not back-lit. Also, it's because screens rely on RGB (red, green, blue) colors to render colors, while prints rely on CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) colors to render colors. While printers use more than just the basic CMYK, it’s still impossible to render some colors like neon colors without using specific neon inks. So one of the things printing professionals do is to convert their image to CMYK colorspace to get an idea of what their image will look like before printing. Some people will create their work in CMYK to begin with, if they know that print is their ultimate goal. This is a feature that is on our long list of To Do's. To allow you to preview your mosaic in CMYK colorspace. However, until then, you can take a screenshot of your mosaic and open it in Photoshop and convert it to CMYK if you're really concerned. But you might not see much of a difference unless you’re using colors that is totally not doable in CMYK. This is also why we offer 100% satisfaction guarantee. However, you should understand that there’s nothing you can do to completely match your print to look exactly like your screen without some back-lighting and without restricting your colors. There is also nothing we can do about the quality of your mosaic. If your mosaic does not look good on screen, it's not going to look good on print. That's why you need to optimize your mosaic so that you like what you see on screen before you make your purchase.

Computer Vision is far from perfect, and it will get it wrong sometimes. That's why after uploading your photos, you should check your photos to see if they look good. If they don't, click on the photo, and crop it manually.

After saving your mosaic, on the zoomable mosaic viewer, double-click the small picture you want to replace. Then click replace, and select the picture you want to replace it with. Then you'll see your new photo in place of the old one. Do it for all the photos you want to replace, and then finalize your edits. You must finalize it, or it will not be reflected on your download or print order.

Ordering

You need to optimize your mosaic. We are not letting you order it because we know that either the small pictures are going to be too small for you to like it at certain print sizes, or that the white space surrounding the mosaic on a frame print will be too uneven for it to be pleasing. Or because darker colored areas of your mosaic may not come out great on canvas media.

You can get the download as soon as you purchase it. There is a download button immediately after checkout. For prints, framed prints, and canvas wraps, it takes 2-5 business days (Monday-Friday) to make the print, frame it, or mount it. And then it takes 5-8 business days for free shipping within the United States. You can opt for faster shipping, as fast as FedEx overnight, but it costs a lot, so the sooner you get your mosaic done and place your order, the more money you can save on shipping.

Make sure to double check the credit card number, and the security code on the back of your card. If all else fails, try paying with PayPal. You do not need a PayPal account, and you can use your credit card through PayPal. Sometimes you may need to call your credit card company if multiple failed attempts have been made already.

Sometimes, there is a delay with PayPal letting us know that your payment came through. If this is the case, wait a few minutes, and then the page should refresh itself to check again if it's been cleared. If it does not, contact us, and we can check the payment and approve your order manually.

We're working on bringing you more print sizes and media, but this is difficult to do while maintaining good value, and top quality. For example, we know of a way to print mosaics in a way that is even sharper than what we're offering now, but the cost for such a print, just the print itself is about 4 times higher, and takes longer to produce. It's something we hope to be able to offer to our most discerning customers in the near future.

Your mosaics are custom made and only valuable to you, so it does not make sense for you to return it as we cannot sell it to someone else. So we do not have a return policy, but we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, where if you are not happy with your mosaic for any reason, we'll issue you a full refund. However you do need to destroy your mosaic and take and send pictures as proof prior to your refund. And if the reason for your refund was due to print issues or shipping issues, we also fully refund any expedited shipping cost. However, if the reason for your refund is that you simply just don't like it, then expedited shipping will not be refunded.

Depending on how it is being shipped, certain shipping carriers may take up to 48 hours before tracking information is updated on their site.

Account

You may have logged in with Facebook, Instagram, Google, or Twitter. If that is the case, you do not have a password, and you'll need to log in with those sites. If you have requested a password reset and you did not receive any email from us, it is most likely the case that you used one of these sites to log in.

You can log in with your username if you do not remember your email. And then you can proceed to change your email. If you are not able to log in, it may be the case that you logged in with Facebook, Instagram, Google, or Twitter before, and you must log in with the site that you previously used to log in with.

Privacy

No, your mosaic is private by default. But you can make it Public or Shared. Public if you want the world to see your creation in our public gallery. Shared if you only want people with access to the link to your mosaic to view it.

Embedding

Your mosaic privacy cannot be set to Private. It must be set to either Public or Shared in order for it to displayed embedded on your page.

Shipping / Shipping Damage / Refunds / Replacements

Click on your username. Click Make a Claim. And then follow the steps to make a claim.

Instant Download

Our mosaics are such high resolution that not all programs and devices can handle it. Professional imaging software like Photoshop will be able to open it, and most desktop programs can open it if your computer has enough RAM. Some programs will refuse to open it, while some will open it at lower resolution making it blurry. Some high end smartphones and tablets can handle it. If this happens, try opening it with different programs you have available. If everything fails, try dragging and dropping your download onto your web browser. Most modern up-to-date desktop web browsers are able to open our mosaic files at full resolution.

You can split your big picture into multiple pieces. Inception. Mosaics within mosaics. Tile multiple mosaics side by side.

You’ll be able to download it immediately after purchase.

Make sure to print your mosaic at full resolution. Do not let print shops downsample it. Check for brand of paper, and for brand and types of inks. Because not all papers and inks are created equal. You want pigmented inks. Branded papers and inks have reputations to uphold, they are much more likely to stand the test of time without fading.

You can, but mosaics are best when printed large. What you could do is, use an image splicing software to split your photo mosaic into multiple pieces so that you can print it. And then put the prints next to each other.

You can, but beware that the quality of the print will not be as high.

You can at some online print shops, but you won’t be able to at some others. And quality varies wildly. Some might not be able to accept the mosaic images at full resolution.

After purchase, just below your download button, there are download links for lower resolutions. Use those links to download lower resolution versions as necessary. Use the highest resolution possible for printing whenever possible for maximum sharpness.

DPI (dots per inches) metadata of the download is set to the default of 72 dpi. Do not be confused by this number. 72 dpi is the DPI of a typical computer monitor, and so image files that are bound for computers are automatically set to this DPI. This is just a meaningless metadata that automatically gets set. We cannot set it for you, because we do not know how large you will print your mosaic. Your image resolution is fixed. The actual DPI is determined when you print it. For example, if you have a 10,000 x 10,000 resolution image, and you print it 10 inches by 10 inches, then the DPI is 1000. But if your print is 20 inches by 20 inches, then the DPI is 500. The formula is to divide the image resolution by the print size.

Megapixels and megabytes are two different things. Megapixels is the measure of number of pixels an image has, while megabytes is a measure of the file size.

Luster Print

There are 3 types of papers. Gloss, matte, and semi-gloss. Gloss is bad for large prints because it will produce too much glare when it's hung on the wall. Matte is not good in most cases because it will look dull, unless you're going for that look. Semi-gloss is good because it has the vivid, sharp, lifelike photographic look while reducing glare with its anti-glare surface. And we believe the best semi-gloss paper is Epson's Premium Luster Photo Paper.

There are 2 types of inks. Dye-based inks and pigmented inks. Dye-based inks have come a long way in quality, but it still does not match pigmented inks. In general, dye-based inks will fade faster than pigmented inks. Pigmented inks are also more vivid. As we use Epson paper, we also only use genuine Epson pigmented inks. Print shops who don't tell you what kind of paper and inks they are using are most likely sacrificing quality to reduce cost, which is fine for certain temporary commercial applications. But for us the need for quality prints for our customers is most important, so we use nothing but the best. After all, your photo mosaic is a piece of art that will be cherished for years to come. The last thing you want is seeing it fade after couple of years.

There are two ways to go about printing when it comes printing process. There is the traditional RIP (Raster Image Processor) software printing, and there is Direct-To-Printer printing. Most print shops will use RIP software to manage multiple print systems. The problem is that most of these RIP systems have some default, ink-saving, "good-enough" settings in them where they will reduce the quality of the image, so your mosaic ends up looking blurry on print, when it should be photo-realistic sharp. This is a common problem in most grocery or office supply store based print shops. We only use the direct to printer method, and always use the highest quality printer settings. This makes a significant different in the sharpness of your small pictures. You can look at it really close, and the pictures will all be very sharp. If you go to other print shops, their printers are most likely set to “medium quality”, which increases the printing speed and lowers ink consumption. So your small pictures ends up not as sharp, which is fine for many applications, but is not ideal for photo mosaics.

Framed Print

It does not mean semi-manufactured or semi-engineered wood. It’s solid wood, but it’s sort of in between softwood and hardwood. Harder than say pine or poplar, but softer than oak or walnut.

Canvas Wrap

Canvas is not good for darker mosaics because of low black contrast levels inherent on canvas media. This is because the matte poly-cotton base of canvas soak up more ink than coated paper. This is why we don't let you order some mosaics on canvas. You can try to overcome this using a brighter big picture, or by using an image editing software to brighten up the big picture.

The canvas paper has a texture. For ultra-sharp printing, you need smooth flat surface.